Global Gauge Symmetries and Spatial Asymptotic Boundary Conditions in Yang-Mills theory (2502.16151v2)

Abstract: In Yang-Mills gauge theory on a Euclidean Cauchy surface the group of physical gauge symmetries carrying direct empirical significance is often believed to be $\mathcal{G}_\text{DES}=\mathcal{G}^I/\mathcal{G}^\infty_0$, where $\mathcal{G}^I$ is the group of boundary-preserving gauge symmetries and $\mathcal{G}^\infty_0$ is its subgroup of transformations that are generated by the constraints of the theory. These groups are identified respectively as the gauge transformations that become constant asymptotically and those that become the identity asymptotically. In the Abelian case $G=U(1)$ the quotient is then identified as the group of global gauge symmetries, i.e. $U(1)$ itself. However, known derivations of this claim are imprecise, both mathematically and conceptually. We derive the physical gauge group rigorously for both Abelian and non-Abelian gauge theory. Our main new point is that the requirement to restrict to $\mathcal{G}^I$ does not follow from finiteness of energy only, but also from the requirement that the Lagrangian of Yang-Mills theory be defined on a tangent bundle to configuration space. Moreover, by carefully considering the rates of asymptotic behavior of the various types of gauge transformations through conformal methods, we explain why the physical quotient consists precisely of a copy of the global gauge group for every homotopy class. Lastly, we consider Yang-Mills-Higgs theory in our framework and show that asymptotic boundary conditions and the physical gauge group differ in the unbroken and broken phases.